Yesterday I found myself in a familiar place. I was sitting in one of the four phone booths located in the basement of the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. I know these booths well. Maybe a little too well.
The circumstances, however, were not so familiar. There were lights, cameras, and a lavalier microphone threaded through my shirt. I was being interviewed by humorist Mo Rocca for a segment which will air on CBS Sunday Morning sometime in the next two or three months. Stay tuned for details!
After the first batch of filming ended the CBS producer and I sat outside the library for about an hour. The topic of the day was phone booths so I felt it appropriate to mention that we happened to be sitting a few yards away from the location of one of the more amazing New York City phone booth photos ever captured. The image might be somewhat compelling if it was taken from a Hollywood film. But this image is altogether real, and it helps illustrate the role public pay telephones sometimes played in the world of crime.
The photo shows fashion designer Calvin Klein standing in a phone booth on 42nd Street at Fifth Avenue. He is holding a bag containing $100,000 in cash.
The photo, by Daily News photographer Tom Monaster, appeared in the February 4, 1978, edition of the paper.
Why was Calvin Klein standing in a phone booth with a hundred grand in a plain brown bag? He had very good reason to have the cash on him. In the years that followed Mr. Klein would often say this was the worst day of his life.
He was waiting for a phone call. His 11 year old daughter, Marci, had been kidnapped while going to school that morning. The captors told Klein his daughter would be released safely upon delivery of a $100,000 ransom.
Before this photo was taken Klein had received another call from the kidnappers at a phone booth located a few blocks away. In that call he was told to go to this booth, one of seven structures outside the New York Public LIbrary on 42nd Street at 5th Avenue. Mr. Klein answered a call here in which he was told to go to the Pan Am Building (today’s MetLife Building) and to leave the bag of money at the top of an escalator.
You can’t help but ask if the kidnappers were inspired by the Phone Booth Game, from the 1971 Clint Eastwood film “Dirty Harry.”
The New York Times, which kept this story on its front page for three days, reported that Klein was utterly shocked to see this image of himself standing in that phone booth. The Daily News, which received sharp criticism for publishing this and other photos from that day, defended its paparazzi stylings, saying that Monaster had deliberately positioned himself far enough away from the events to make it impossible for him to jeopardize police operations.
The Daily News had apparently learned details of the kidnapping by monitoring FBI radio frequencies.
The phone booths in this image are long gone. But much has been written about the kidnapping of Marci Klein and the strange trial that followed. Here are a few links to start.
NEW YORK TIMES: Calvin Klein’s Daughter Abducted, Then Freed for $100,000
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Designer Klein’s Daughter Kidnapped, Released Safe
NEW YORK TIMES: Klein Tells of First Phone Call And His Child’s Frightened Voice
HIGHSNOBIETY: Did the Kidnapping of Calvin Klein’s Daughter Help Boost Denim Sales?